[JoeC]

The 1967 Camaro was not produced with the 396 until January of 67 so the early conversions were done to SS 350 Camaros. Later when the SS 396 375 hp Camaro was available all they had to do was swap the L78 short block with a L72 block so they most likly would have used a L78 car. They may have still used a small block cars after January depending on what was available and what the customer wanted for options. Motion and Nickey did some 66 Chevelle 427 conversions and probably did 427 Camaros as soon as they got their hands on one. The first Motion 427 Camaro ran a L88 and was used as a drag car. The magazine article claimed it was the first L88 sold to a dealer other then the Chevy race teams. Nickey was working with Bill Thomas and Dick Harrell. All three also had prior racing and fabricating experience. I would guess that Harrell and Thomas built the first 427 Camaros since Bill T had a complete fabricating shop and was already building Corvairs and Nova race cars and doing special projects for Chevy Engineering. Chevy hired some race shops like Thomas and Smokey Yunick to do work for them where it was done less expensively and hidden from Chevy management. In Smokeys book he claimed he was given the first 66 Chevelle prototype (with a 427 in it from Chevy) and used it to build his first 66 Chevelle Daytona race car.